On the correspondence between dream content and target material under laboratory conditions: A meta-analysis of dream-ESP studies, 1966-2014

Abstract

<p>In order to further our understanding about the limits of human consciousness and the dream state, we report meta-analytic results on experimental dream-ESP studies for the period 1966 to 2016. Dream-ESP can be defined as a form of extra-sensory perception (ESP) in which a dreaming perceiver ostensibly gains information about a randomly selected target without using the normal sensory modalities or logical inference. Studies fell into two categories: the Maimonides Dream Lab (MDL) studies (<i>n</i> = 14), and independent (non-MDL) studies (n = 36). The MDL dataset yielded mean <i>ES</i> = .33 (<i>SD</i> = 0.37); the non-MDL studies yielded mean <i>ES</i> = .14 (<i>SD</i> = 0.27). The difference between the two mean values was not significant. A homogeneous dataset (<i>N</i> = 50) yielded a mean <i>z</i> of 0.75 (<i>ES</i> = .20, <i>SD</i> = 0.31), with corresponding significant Stouffer <i>Z</i> = 5.32, <i>p</i> = 5.19 × 10^-8, suggesting that dream content can be used to identify target materials correctly and more often than would be expected by chance. No significant differences were found between: (a) three modes of ESP (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition), (b) senders, (c) perceivers, or (d) REM/non-REM monitoring. The ES difference between dynamic targets (e.g., movie-film) and static (e.g., photographs) targets was not significant. We also found that significant improvements in the quality of the studies was not related to <i>ES</i>, but <i>ES</i> did decline over the 51-year period. Bayesian analysis of the same homogeneous dataset yielded results supporting the 'frequentist' finding that the null hypothesis should be rejected. We conclude that the dream-ESP paradigm in parapsychology is worthy of continued investigation, but we recommend design improvements.</p>